


Firewood: A Noah St. Claire Fanfic

by midenianscholar



Category: The Silver Eye (Webcomic)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:48:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24126910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midenianscholar/pseuds/midenianscholar
Summary: Noah St. Claire is reeling from recent events and not at all in the mood to make cookies for patrons with a bunch of orphans.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	Firewood: A Noah St. Claire Fanfic

_(Originally written in 2014 as my Secret Santa entry for The Silver Eye (<http://www.thesilvereye.com/)>. My prompt was: Noah chopping firewood in the snow.)_

I hear the racket before I even get to the kitchen. It’s a battlefield inside—and I should know, I’ve learned my fair share about battles. Kids are lined up against every flat surface in this massive kitchen, some on stools and some actually sitting on the counters. Flour covers them hair to toes and everyone seems to be in a contest about who can make the most noise. Give me the Deadwaters over this any day.

Mom stands in the middle of it all, smiling even as she calls commands. No one looking on would suspect she’s a recent widow.

“Cookies for the patrons!” she says in a sing-song voice. “Who’s excited to make cookies for the patrons?”

There’s a chorus of huzzahs. I spot Avidan in amongst the orphans, stealing a glob of cookie dough from a bowl while Mom’s back is turned. She continues singing the steps—“pat down the flour, put some dough on the counter, roll, roll, roll”—and she doesn’t even glance at the doorway. She doesn’t see me. She’s too busy dabbing flour on the nose of some orphan girl who’s perched beside her. 

“Mother!” I have to roar to be heard over the kids. Some of them flinch away. “The main fire’s out _again_.”

“Well, just put more wood on it,” she says, hardly looking at me. 

She’s rolling more cookies and half-smiling at that girl and there isn’t a shadow under her eyes, there isn’t a sign of sleeplessness. I can’t sleep anymore. Not since I saw Velvare almost die. 

If Mom hadn’t given away every penny we brought in, maybe he never would’ve left. If she spent a second on me or Idony or just plain practicality, maybe we’d have the staff this place needs and maybe she wouldn’t be crawling with orphans in a kitchen that could hold an army of servants. At this rate, I’m not even sure she’ll be able to keep this place basically decent when she doesn’t have me to do the dirty work. 

“I can’t put more wood on because there isn’t any chopped!” I shout across at her. “Everywhere that isn’t this hellish room is freezing. Why don’t you have someone to manage the fires?”

“Why pay when you can do it yourself?” She doesn’t even look up. “Go chop the wood if you’re cold. And don’t swear in front of the children.” To some of the orphans, she says, “Sarah, don’t stand so close to the fire. Melle, what did I tell you about sharing with Avidan? Enel, _stop eating the sugar_.” 

The anger flashes through me. I’m only here for another two weeks before I go back East. 

“I’m supposed to be on _leave_.” Not that it’s made much difference to her. I’ve hardly seen her since I’ve been home. “Your precious babies are going to be getting into frost-covered beds tonight.”

“Well, then go take care of it, or stop complaining.” She pushes a loose strand of hair back with her arm. “We can’t always have everything the way we’d like.”

Here’s what I’d like: I’d like everyone to just shut up and sit still. 

I’d like one of those Christmases where nobody is wearing black bands and nobody has to be grateful for pitying benefactors and nobody makes cookies for a flipping concert on Christmas Eve and nobody has to shout over a herd of orphans to talk to their Mom. 

It hits me, like it does now and then: He’s not coming back. He’s dead. 

Enormous townhouses and orphans stuffed in every corner and the racket of a kitchen full of kids isn’t going to change it.

_He’s dead,_ I think at her, trying to stare a hole into her forehead. _He’s dead, he’s dead,_ “He’s dead!”

I don’t realize I’ve spoken until it’s out of my mouth. I stiffen, hold my breath, wait for her to snap back.

Instead, she says in her singsong voice, “I can’t hear you, Noah.” She tries to shush some of the orphans in a playful way. They ignore her. With a shrug, she calls, “Go take care of the firewood. And cheer up! It’s almost Christmas.”

I glance at Enel, the brother no one talks about. His hand is in the sugar again, too busy licking some dough off the counter to notice he’s about to flip the jar. 

I don’t bother to answer. I just turn and leave. 

_He_ wasn’t a saint. I’m doing my best to not be sentimental about it. I know it happens—to soldiers on the field, to anyone. They die and then everyone’s expected to forget who they really were and just replace them with a cleaned-up shadow.

He wasn’t a saint. But I saw his wounds. I saw the way he died. 

The hallway is huge, everything about this new orphanage is huge. Glad to know Velvare could measure our worth— _his_ worth—in bricks and brats. I may be seventeen but I’m not an idiot. 

Velvare may have appeased his conscience, but he hasn’t protected my family. Not that he ever did. He’s trying to buy our forgiveness. By the look on Mom’s face, it’s working.

Not for me, though. Nothing is going to make me forget. Or forgive.

The firewood’s out back. Slush covers the ground, and I stomp it into puddles as I go. A few new flakes are falling. Everyone’s always going on about how snow is clean and makes everything beautiful, rubbish like that. The truth is snow’s a lie that leaves cold ugliness. 

I throw down a log and grab an ax. For a little while I lose myself to the rhythm of it. Maybe I’m pretending the logs are Velvare, maybe I’m not.

Once my arms start to ache, I take a rest and sneak out one of my cigars. After a long puff or two, I’m starting to feel a little less lousy. The snowfall isn’t that bad. Sort of nice to watch. At least it will get rid of the slush for a day or two.

“Noah?”

I turn. Idony’s there, a stick clutched in her hand. I drop the cigar and kick slush over it before I remember she can’t see it anyway. Irritated with myself—those things aren’t cheap—I snap, “What?”

“I brought you a cookie from the first batch!” She holds it out proudly. It’s covered in frosting and in the shape of a star. I can tell she made it herself because it’s about half an inch thick in sprinkles. “Try it!”

“Thanks.” I take the cookie. It’s almost painfully sweet. Not really my thing, but the patrons will like it. I chew and swallow. “It’s good.”

She smiles. “You smell sorta like Da.”

“Don’t tell Mother.” I’m still not used to the way Idony’s eyes try to focus on something just beyond my shoulder, just behind the back of my head, like she can see through me even though she’s really not seeing at all. I brush off my clothes, and the sprinkles go flying. 

“He doesn’t smell like that anymore. Did he stop smoking?”

I don’t answer. I’m not going to half-lie, like Mom, and say some comforting, misleading thing just to make Idony feel better. Just to make myself feel better.

“Look,” I say instead, “who cares? We don’t need him.”

“I wish he’d come back.”

She’s stupid and little and covered in freckles and blind and I hate that she gets to not know. I hate that Mom gets to shroud Idony in pretending.

I want to smash another log. I want to tell her what he really was, what he did. I want to tell her who Velvare is, what he does. I want to make someone else as angry as I am.

But she wouldn’t get angry, I know. She’d get crushed. 

“I miss him,” she says, picking at the bark on her stick. 

She’s sweet and little and covered in freckles and blind and I’m not going to hurt her. She can keep her hope a little longer. I sort of wish I could.

I say, “Yeah, me too.”

My throat scrapes a little. Probably just the cold. Idony leans her head against my leg, and I pat her curly hair, like he used to do. 

I guess it’s just me now, to remember and carry on. 

Me and her.


End file.
